Jumping at the pump

For most of January the average price of unleaded petrol in Townsville was 143.7 cents per litre; today the price at some bowsers was 155 cents per litre.

Michael Roth from the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland says Townsville has had some of the cheapest petrol in the state for a long time.

"In the meantime the wholesale price has been going up and it has edged up over the year so far by about eight cents per litre and it's up to $1.40.

"So the servos were making less and less money on each litre of fuel they sold and they have now bitten the bullet and put it up, unfortunately they have put it up too far," he says.

The slight drop in the value of the Australian dollar may also be pushing up the cost of fuel suggests Mr Roth.

Regional centres like Cairns and Mackay are likely to follow Townsville's lead and increase their fuel prices too, says Mr Roth.

The average price for petrol in Brisbane today was 154.9 and should drop again over the next few weeks.

"That's the top of the cycle here, it will discount over the next couple of weeks back down to about ten cents less than that, so in terms of a consistent price 150 should really be the maximum that Townsville is looking at," he says.